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03 Aug 2015 9:10:09am

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Mel

“You still haven't dealt with the fact that the gospel stories were told while people who lived at the time were still alive.”

Of course I have. I’ve pointed out that not one of them left us a first-hand historical account of Jesus. That Paul says all but nothing of him as a human. That Mark devised Jesus’ life story from the OT and parables. That Matthew and Luke copied Mark. That John isn’t written till c. 100 CE. And I could add that they all wrote in Greek, not Aramaic, and that not one of them gives us a physical description of Jesus.

“Paul never met Jesus. That's irrelevant to the question.”

Again: Paul says (Gal 1:12) that EVERYTHING he tells you about Jesus comes out of his own head. Since his Jesus is the first we meet in history, that’s highly relevant.

“‘We can rule out all magical stories on first principles.’ That is true only if you have a prior commitment to naturalism.”

So you acknowledge that Osiris, Zeus and Ganesha have all performed, and may continue to perform, miracles, I take it.

“Once again God is Being itself not a being among beings.”

So, in your view, God is simply a synonym for ‘the universe’? If not, distinguishes them?

“You seem to be proposing that anything else is imaginary.”

Of course. I asked you what else there is besides objective existence and imagination, and you haven’t told me.

“it fails to be able to answer questions of morality, intentionality, the origin of coded information in cells.”

Oh dear. We’ve been through all of that earlier. You offered no reasoned rebuttal at all of the evidence for genetic morality that I cited, and now you’re pretending I never said it.

“declaring yourself no different to a pebble”

I differ from a pebble in being a biologically evolved entity.

“your thoughts can have no causal power - there are only physical causes.”

Brains are 100% physical. Thoughts are part of brain function, hence also wholly made up of physical processes.

“What scholar has concluded Mark borrows from Josephus?”

Theodore (‘Ted’) Weeden (in the Jesus Seminar, from memory) documented some two dozen parallels, including -

Both are arrested by or at the instigation of Jerusalem leaders.Both are assailed at their respective Jewish hearings/trials for their attacks on the temple.Both keep their silence in the face of the charges against them with regard to their respective pronouncements.Both provoke an enraged response from the Jerusalem leader(s) for making inflammatory pronouncements.Both are chastised by Jerusalem leaders.Following the hearings, both are delivered to the Roman procurator.Both are interrogated by their respective governor.Both are asked by the Roman governor to disclose their respective identities.Each curator mo